d to telegraph for fear of alarming you. 'Don't cry till you're
hurt' is an old proverb. Why, neither of you act much better than as if
her dead body had been brought home!"

They heard him, but neither replied. They waited--it seemed an hour--for
an answer to the telephonic message, and it came, simply this: "Nothing
has been heard as yet of Miss Fern."

The thoroughly distressed and disheartened father shrank before the gaze
of the lover, when this news was promulgated by Mr. Gouger.

"What swindle is this?" were the bitter words he heard. "Have you
decided on another husband for your daughter, and come to break the news
to me in this fashion?"

Mr. Gouger interfered, to protect the old man whose suffering was
evidently already too acute.

"Hush!" he exclaimed. "Can't you see that you are killing him? Be
careful!"

Roseleaf waved him back with a sweep of his arm.

"Your advice has not been asked," he replied, gutturally. "I can see
some things, if I _am_ blind. That girl has gone to the man she
loves--the man he," indicating the father, "wanted her to marry. He is
rich, and I am poor, and he has won! It is plain enough! And he
pretended, day by day, to my face, that he had given her up for my sake;
and she put her arms around me, and beguiled me into confidence, in
order to strike me the harder at the end. Well, let him have her! I
wouldn't take her from him. But there's an account between us that he
may not like to settle. When you see your friend, tell him that!"

Mr. Fern heard these terrible sentences like a man in a dream. It could
not be Roseleaf that was uttering them--the man to whom his young
daughter had given the full affection of her innocent heart! He was mad
to talk that way. Mad! mad!

"You will repent these rash statements," said the old gentleman, rising
faintly from his seat. "You will repent them, sir, in sackcloth. I wish
with all my heart that Mr. Weil was here, for he would at least try to
help me find my child."

Mr. Gouger suggested that Mr. Weil would be at Midlands soon, as he had
an invitation to the wedding.

"No," replied Mr. Fern, chokingly. "I received word from him to-day that
he could not attend. He is out of the city."

Roseleaf gave vent to an expression of nausea.

"Are you yourself deceived?" he exclaimed. "He will not attend _my_
wedding; certainly not! He is attending _his own_. If, indeed, he does
not compass his ends without that preliminary."

Weak and old as